I saw a (good) movie today in television: The blue room (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Room_(2014_film)). There was one scene playing in a cinema, they didn't show the screen but you could hear the alleged sound of the movie that was shown there. It was the telephone conversation from we're only in it for the money.

In the movie Ordinary People (c. 1980), 2 kids ride up to a house chatting about how cool Flakes is.

Just this week, there was background music of King Kong in the HBO series Big Little Lies. I wonder if Ahmet got any cash from the production company.

_________________Everytime we picked a booger we'd flip it on this one winduh. Every night we'd contribute, 2, 3, 4 boogers. We had to use a putty knife, man, to get them damn things off the winduh. There was some goober ones that weren't even hard...

One could guess that a zombie film directed by Jim Jarmusch would be painfully hip. With a cast featuring Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Iggy Pop, and Tom Waits, “The Dead Don’t Die” doesn’t disappoint. Frustratingly, Jarmusch brings nothing new to this overworked sub-genre. (The press kit notes 55 zombie-themed movies or TV shows were released in 2014.) The film grasps for political subtext in a lazy, secondhand way. In the end, its zombie apocalypse is quite cozy.

The small town of Centerville, whose name is lifted from Frank Zappa’s “200 Motels,” is guarded by three cops: Cliff (Murray), Ronnie (Adam Driver) and Mindy (Chloë Sevigny). One fairly ordinary day, TVs start flickering and animals act strangely. TV anchor Posie Juarez (Rosie Perez) relays news about polar fracking doing permanent damage to the earth, which seems to lead to the dead rising from their graves. Soon, the cops, as well as eccentric swordswoman Zelda (Swinton), are fighting an infestation of zombies who can only be killed by destroying their heads. The film also takes in the stories of two other groups of three people, although it devotes less time to them: a trio in their 20s riding in a car and teens confined to a juvenile prison. Working with a large ensemble cast, Jarmusch returns to Cliff and Ronnie for the bulk of the film; the subplots about the more racially diverse younger characters feel tacked on.

“The Dead Don’t Die” makes a few stabs at smirky postmodernism. They don’t do the film much good. Wu-Tang Clan leader RZA — and composer of the score for Jarmusch’s “Ghost Dog” — has a cameo as Dean, a delivery driver for Wu-PS, whose trucks show the group’s logo. Country singer Sturgill Simpson’s “The Dead Don’t Die” is the only song the characters are able to hear through their radios; in fact, the CD single is available for sale at a gas station. Ronnie remarks, “It’s the theme song” early on, prefiguring the fact that he and Cliff are aware that they’re in a movie. Murray breaks character to call Jarmusch a dick because the director only showed him the script scenes in which he appeared. The film never gives us a reason to care about any of this, nor is it very funny.

The film’s tone is featherweight, which makes its aspiration toward political commentary a bit silly. Having Farmer Miller (Steve Buscemi) wear a red hat that reads “Keep America White Again” isn’t exactly deep. (At this point, the grammatical redundancy is a more cutting dig at Trumpists than the racism.) It’s a bigger problem that “The Dead Don’t Die” is such a blatant homage to George A. Romero’s zombie films, especially “Dawn of the Dead.” It lifts a line about the undead being drawn to things they loved in life. When Romero had his zombies head to a shopping mall in 1978, it said something fresh about consumerism, especially combined with a level of over-the-top gore presented in a manner that was both disturbing and funny.

“The Dead Don’t Die” just repeats Romero’s critique of the emptiness of consumer culture. That wouldn’t matter if it were consistently witty, but it doesn’t keep up the uncanny weirdness of Sara Driver and Iggy Pop’s zombies moaning “coffee” and pouring the drink down their throats — and all over themselves. The zombies keep calling out the name of whatever they’re attracted to: one disembowels a human while saying “free cable.” There’s lots of violence in “The Dead Don’t Die,” but relatively little gore due to the fact that the zombies’ heads disappear into a puff of FX-generated black dust. The only scene that aims for gravity (and achieves it) is a massacre near the end.

Ironically, Jarmusch’s direction of actors, especially Driver and Murray, continues his trademark deadpan style. In “Stranger Than Paradise,” he depicted a post-punk blank generation as well as anyone. While his visual style has moved on from his early minimalism, his fondness for symmetrical framing of actors persists. But Driver and Murray’s affectless performances convey a pessimistic resignation. (Swinton acts much livelier.) It’s the end of the world as they know it and they’ll trudge on. They can’t go on, but they must. If the film evokes anything real about American life, it doesn’t lie in overt social commentary but in its sense that the country’s current mood is pained, weary exhaustion. Whatever Jarmusch’s intentions, this film is about struggling with depression.

Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love and Thunder has been delayed due to the Coronavirus pandemic, but that hasn’t stopped work altogether. Waititi is still polishing up the script from quarantine and has been teasing new elements. For instance, two weeks ago, he revealed that the film would see the debut of the Space Sharks, which are pretty much what you’d expect from that name.

Now, however, we have an inkling of another character thanks to a leaked casting call. It’s asking for actors to audition for a supporting lead named Zappa. Marvel Studios and Waititi are looking for a young black male between 11 and 12 years old, either African-American or Black-British. His personality will be intelligent, fearless, mature and with a good sense of humor.

So, who’s Zappa? Well, there’s no existing Marvel Comics character with that name and I can’t think of anyone who fits the (vague) character description. However, Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok took a lot of inspiration from Jack Kirby, which looks to continue in Love and Thunder. Kirby was good friends with musician Frank Zappa, too.

According to Frank Zappa’s son Ahmet:

“Jack would come over and smoke cigars and Frank would smoke cigarettes, and they’d talk and talk.”

Frank Zappa was also a huge comic book fan, even going so far as to advertise his music in Marvel Comics. In addition, Taika Waititi has mentioned being a fan of Frank Zappa’s music. All this probably nods toward at least the name being a reference to Frank Zappa.

Perhaps this is a temporary moniker chosen for casting in order to hide the presence of a well known character in the movie, or perhaps he’s a new character created by Waititi? If you have any better ideas, let us know in the comments.

Thor: Love and Thunder is now set for release on February 18th, 2022. Fingers crossed it doesn’t slip any further.

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